The Mystic Munchkin and the Perplexed Professor
by abenormalguy
Summary: Dipper is an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley. One tedious day, he receives a visit from his twin sister, Mabel, who has become a Hindu nun. The two venture across the world in order to seal parts of the Nightmare Realm that are leaking in to the real world. Rated M for copious amounts of swearing, drug use and innuendo.
1. Dipper Questions his Life Choices

Dipper was 40 when the weirdness finally got to him. The once-enthusiastic young man was working a job as an adjunct professor of folklore at the University of California in Berkeley. He spent several years of his life living amongst lumberjacks, trying to work on a thesis on the parallels between their "strange critters" and anomalous occurrences that took place in rural areas of the Pacific Northwest. It was safe to say that this wasn't easy, not even in the slightest. The university was a bastion of secularity and freethinking, and they weren't quite buying into his ramblings on "dream demons" and "bizarre breaches into our reality." His Great Uncle Stanford was lost from academia for a reason, "they" wanted to preserve at least some sanity. In addition to his perennial quest to achieve tenure, Dipper thought that life in the classroom was really goddamn annoying. If the students weren't off smoking their doobies, they were in the back of the class sleeping, or playing the newest video games. The only people that would answer his questions were the same three, and he was tired of them always answering with such tact.

Dipper's home life was slightly better, but only slightly. He was happily married to a fellow occultist, the acclaimed religious studies professor and notable redhead, Cindy Hesychast. She was certainly weird, what with her meditating in the attic for hours on end, going on constant excursions to the redwood forest to honor her gods, and accompanying him to intimate romps in the local cemetery at midnight, but Dipper liked weird. He had twins with Cindy, Balthazar and Bertha Pines, certainly precocious as they were composing novels, going on hikes and solving mysteries right under their parent's noses but Dipper had his precocious moments in the past. His life was falling apart, but in the most glorious of ways. But for some reason, even though he lived a life where he explored constantly, discovered things he'd never think possible, this uncanny strangeness never got to him until now.

The befuddled professor poured his fifth cup of Javanese kris-stirred coffee. It was the start of the Spring semester, and what a wonderful thing that was. After a good two weeks of camping off the grid, totally not to avoid paying taxes, Dipper was not really prepared for the endless amounts of grading, berating and research he would have to do, and how many trips he would have to take to the cemetery at midnight with Cindy to relieve his stress. His hyperactive kids were back in the good ol' second grade and his wife was on sabbatical in order to finish her paper on Zoroaster and the Chaldean Oracles and because of this, had to take many trips to Iran and Afghanistan to invade people's personal archives and temples with her wacky cohort of a Cossack, a Nihang, and a Gaucho, all with facial hair much cooler than his. This sadly meant fewer trips to the cemetery.

"Home sweet home, am I right?" Dipper was talking to a tacky lamp he found at the local flea market. "This guy gets it." He was a lonely, lonely man.

As Dipper stirred his emotions and his emotions stirred his coffee, he heard a knock at the door. The pounding was at first immense and grand, but eventually it quickened.

"I'm coming!" Dipper said as he tripped over the tacky lamp's wiring, "Fuck! I'm almost there! This isn't what it sounds like!" He slipped and slided on the newly waxed floor and stumbled towards the door, a wooden mass of branches. He grabbed the knob and he jerked it with all of his might. Out came the door and there stood a very familiar figure from his past.


	2. Return of the Mack, Except Mack is Mabel

"Mabel? What in Bill's name are you doing here? And how did you even find my house?" His sugar-snorting sister had changed in about every way. The last time they made contact was when she left for India to become a Sadhvi, a fact which shocked pretty much everyone involved. Indeed, her once springy hair became matted, her colorful display of sweaters had been replaced by a saffron robe and her lust for boys had been exchanged for a most divine love for Vishnu, the Preserver. She carried with her a mighty staff, a comb, several sets of prayer beads and a bag of sattvic foods and various other arcane artifacts. The mystical munchkin was also equipped with a dour look, as if something bad happened, and ever since Sweatertown got evicted, Dipper knew something was amiss.

"Dipper, I know that this is a weird request, especially since I haven't seen you in ten years, but I need you to do something. Also, the name's Sita, now."

"I'm all ears, Mabel. Well, actually, I'm mostly beard at this point."

Mabel reached in her backpack and pulled out a book written in some off-dialect of Sanskrit. It was the only one of its kind, at least it probably was, as the pages were rusted with a most tamasic funk. In it were scribblings and doodlings of an arcane sort, of many beings, some with more eyes and teeth than people know what to do with that seemed familiar to him, yet oddly distant.

"These are what we call devas, demons or monsters to you, probably, but they're all too familiar to me. Recently I found this manuscript while in one of my ecstatic trances, and frankly, I'm a bit worried. In addition to being a bestiary, this document details that towards the end of the Kali Yuga, they shall appear in certain places across the globe. I figured that someone like you would be able to deal with such anomalies and I'll need your help to seal them off. It's hard in these times for a Hindu ascetic like myself to get around without getting a few odd stares, so bring your brains and your knowledge of the occult. Also, my name is Sita."

Dipper was shocked, yet oddly satisfied. He knew that the barriers between the realms of weirdness and our realm would break someday, and he always wanted to spit in the face of those who dared call him a lunatic. It would probably be a lot more fun than teaching 101 classes about werewolves or some bullshit like that.

"Well, in all honesty, Mabel, that sounds like a lot of fun. But I have kids to take care of, and class to teach, not that I really want to."

"You know, Dipper, that's a good point, but this is pretty damn important, pardon my Pali. Besides, look at us! I mean, we haven't seen each other in ten years! Don't ya wanna be mystery twins again, huh? Huh? Also, the name's Sita. Actually, you know what? I like it when you call me Mabel. Reminds me of the good times we've had."

It was a tempting offer, but before Dipper left, he had some pertinent issues waiting for him to take care of, and he knew just the person to deal with the ordeal.

The two performed the traditional Awkward Sibling Hug and Dipper dashed onwards to Oakland, where he knew a certain someone who could fix matters lived.


	3. Drug Abuse is a Very Serious Issue, Kids

Fate did not take kindly to Wendy Corduroy. Whereas Mabel Pines was blessed with the mace of Vishnu, Wendy was cursed with the pipe of Crack. After several excursions to the wacky town of Gravity Falls, Dipper and Wendy dated for a couple of years, got engaged, and both went to graduate school to study folklore at the University of Oregon. The two had lived amongst lumberjacks for a good part of their research, but the stress eventually got to Wendy. She was fascinated by the use of alcohol in logging communities, and it got to her liver. This led to her becoming increasingly physical with Dipper, and not even in the ways he enjoyed. After they were able to complete their doctorates, Wendy was moving onto more horrible drugs, claiming "to dissect the folkloric properties of cocaine and heroin in urban environments in the Bay Area or some bullshit like that, okay?"

This hit Dipper in the Bae Area, that is to say, his heart.

While the two were living together, Wendy's living conditions were considerably more squalid. She gave her first unborn child a baptism in Jack Daniels, and stole Dipper's only razor before the Great Blade Crisis of 2029, where many Katana wielding weeaboos committed seppuku. They eventually separated, and Wendy got a job at the community college in the ghetto's ghetto, Harvard State in Oakland. Dipper finally found love with Cindy, a recently tenured cutie in the religion department, a place where he would often sneak by in order to try some brownies that "totally are just made of fudge and nothing else, man." Wendy on the other hand, had a steady stream of lovers garnished with drugs. The two hadn't spoken in years on end, and Dipper needed someone to take care of his kids while he was traversing the globe with his mystic sister and his wife was in Central Asia with people who had neat facial hair. Dipper thought that it wouldn't be that wise to leave his kids and his 101 class to a crack-addled husband-beater, but he didn't know anyone else. He could try Bombleboy Bungus, the local babysitter and college substitute, but that guy always ate furniture and drank all of Dipper's cleaning detergent. Besides, Dipper needed an axe, because you never know what kind of trees or things for that matter need to be cut down.

Dipper took the BART to Simson Street in Oakland, a place that rapidly gentrified and rapidly decayed afterwards. Thanks to GPS based surveillance, Dipper was able to locate Wendy's hovel. It was a squalid house, sprayed in graffiti, overlooking the spiraling skyline where the tycooniest tycoons lived. Dipper knocked on the decaying door.

"Remember, I just want her to babysit, cover my class and to borrow one of her antique axes, nothing more." Dipper thought this to himself as he knocked so hard that the door was decimated before his very eyes. What faced him was a sight to behold. Cheap crumpled beer cans littered almost every square inch of the room, the light was flickering on and off, and corny faux-metal music was playing from the speakers. The only thing that seemed to be in relatively decent condition was an antique display of axes in the cabinet outside her bedroom.

"Wazzat? Who's there?" said a rusty, cocaine-punctured voice from the bedroom, awaking from a masturbatory stupor.

"Um, hey, Wendy, it's me, your buddy Dipper, remember?"

"Ah, Dipper, I remember you, come over here and fuck me like you used to."

"There's no need for that." Dipper retorted, afraid about what kind of Pandora's Box he opened. " Listen, I need you to teach my 101 class on folklore and take care of my kids while my wife is away. I'm going with Mabel to-"

"Ah, Mabel, I remember that little whoremonger. Didn't she start a brothel or something?"

"Well, actually she's a Hindu nun now, and before you rudely interrupted me, I said we were going to go across the world to seal off these weirdness hot spots where strange creatures have been appearing."

"Makes perfect sense." Wendy sloshed back.

"So, I mean, how's work at Harvard State Community College? Must be not that exciting, besides Berkeley is known for their drug use and hot professors, myself included. Here are my keys and here's my syllabus, now can I please borrow one of your antique axes?"

"Sure," Wendy retorted in a snarkily sly voice. "But there's something I need to tell you."

"What? This better not be about sex, because I'm not going down that road, oh no-siree."

"It's just that, I recently found this book while I was in a logging camp. It details these mystical drugs that are used to enter greater states of consciousness through trees. For some reason it's been controlling my life. I hid my most coveted lumberjack entheogens in it, and I think you should have it. You could use my axe for more than cutting down trees, you know, you need to shave that fucking beard. Good BILL is it long and scraggily."

"You know, Wendy, that's genuinely nice, this may help me in my perilous quest."

"Oh, and I'm also terribly sorry for beating you up, stealing your razor to sell for cocaine and killing our unborn child, I'll try to do my best with your kids, but it's tough when you have a grimoire you can barely understand dictating your life."

"Don't mention it." Dipper said as he traversed his way from the beer-can splayed floor, axe and book in hand.

"Oh, and Wendy?" Dipper said as he reached the broken door. "I hardly think that the book alone was the reason for you going all crazy. Get yourself together, woman! I know there's some of you that's at least a bit approachable in there. Class begins at 10:00 in Dambangus hall, so I'd get going if I were you."

Dipper felt more accomplished as he hopped on the BART to Berkeley, where his sister was oh-so-patiently waiting. As Dipper disappeared from her sights, Wendy smiled a perverse grin as she nonchalantly changed the music from Theory of a Deadman to Conlon Nancarrow, recycled her beer cans and called up a dear friend.

"He knows."


	4. Dipper Invades his Wife's Library

As Dipper went back to his pad, he spotted his sister in a completely alien yoga position on the stoop, legs behind her back supported only by her hands and faith for Vishnu.

"Hey Mabel, I'm back from my trip, I think we have someone who can take care of the kids while Cindy is away. Also, I picked up this book. It's an herbal of some kind, I think? I can barely understand it as it is the language feels so familiar, yet so very distant."

Mabel stopped whatever the heck she was doing and did a backflip, now looking quizzically at Dipper.

"Let me see that book."

Dipper handed her the book. It was a musty, dusty tome, probably one of its kind, detailing various kinds of plants found across the world.

"Let's see, smoked it, smoked it, was told by my guru not to smoke it, smoked it, smoked it, would never smoke it, drank it, Dipper, do you know what this is?"

"Uh, what?"

"It's the companion piece to my bestiary! I'd been tripping out on these specific plants looking for it! Who gave this to you?"

"Uh, Wendy?" Dipper said, embarrassed.

Mabel wagged her finger in a condescending motion. "Aw Vishnu, Dipper, they're onto us! You should be careful, things are not quite what they seem. You'd better keep your wits aboutcha."

"I mean, now that I think about it, it's weird that a crack-addled folklore professor would have a book that's very similar to your bestiary."

"Aw shit, Dipper, I just remembered! There's one more book, it details the locations where these monsters and plants are found. It could be key for shutting down these nightmare portals!"

"Well gee, where could it be? It's not like my wife collects weird books or some shit like that, oh wait."

So Dipper invited Mabel inside and the two began scouring Cindy's library.

Cindy's library was, for lack of a better word, immense. Nuzzled in a closet was a dingy passageway that led to a cell full of books, many on topics even Dipper wouldn't delve into. The library was lit by the sky, which beamed down from a stained-glass window of Saint Michael the Archangel conquering Satan. Dipper always thought this was weird, especially coming from someone who probably would have been burnt at the stake had she time travelled to the Puritan Era.

"Woah! I haven't seen this many books since I invaded a sacred library as part of my initiation!" Mabel Exclaimed.

"Yup, that's Cindy for ya, hoarder of books, each one more obscure than the last." Dipper said this with a wide smile on his beard-encrusted face. "Let's see what we got here."

Dipper beckoned towards the occult shelf in his wife's library. In it were plastered various texts from across the globe. There was a treatise on the performance of Inuit magic, a collection of various Seid-litanies to Odin composed in orgasm, ethnographies of martial arts and their metaphysical connotations in South India, and an account of travel to Timbuktu by foot as well as a survey of the presence of Sufism there.

"Ugh, where is it?" Dipper was tired skimming through his wife's impressive collection of rare books. He desperately needed a drink of water and his fatigue was causing him to have visions of creatures with more eyes and arms than necessary. Meanwhile, Mabel was bouncing to and fro while attempting to meditate and divine where the book is. Being the tired, dazed dad and adjunct professor that he is, Dipper, however, started to fall asleep. His body decompressed until his head hit a button subtly painted onto the wood finish. All of a sudden, the bookshelf Dipper was facing retracted upwards, leading to a most curious stone corridor lit by medieval torches. The two carefully traversed down it.

"Sweet merciful Vishnu, the plot thickens!"

"I'll say. That Cindy sure is a mysterious fellowina. Wait, what do you call a female fellow anyways?"

"Beats me."

"Damn! I should know, I'm a professor, for crying out loud."

"Eh, academic knowledge is something, but spiritual knowledge? That's where it's at. I mean the University of Oregon was fine, for like… twelve minutes, but I needed bigger and better things to do, so I started a brothel."

"Oh, yeah, I remember that, you really needed action, huh?"

"I guess I didn't need it in the long run, I mean I'm a nun, for Rama's sake!"

"Speaking of which, I'm just curious, how did you get to here from India in the first place?"

"It's a long story. But to save time let's just say that– oh hey! Look at that!"

The corridor came to a screeching halt and the two were facing a door with a sign above that read "BOOKS OF PURE EVIL, through this door"

"Well, I hope this is the place." Dipper was a bit nervous. He never traversed this part of his house before. Townhouses were weird things indeed.

Dipper opened the door, fearful about just what his wife was hiding from him. The door was unlocked for whatever reason and in the room was a sight to behold. The room was, much like the slightly more mainstream library, packed to the brim with books of all sorts.

"Hmmm, let's see here, the complete F.A.T.A.L rulebook, the Turner Diaries, Ass Goblins of Auschwitz, the Necronomicon, De Vermis Mysteriis, How to Draw Manga, wait a second Mabel, what is the name of this book in the first place?"

"The Mahagrangudon. A classic of strange locations known the worlds over. I can't believe I forgot to tell you the names of the Ravana-damn books!"

"Oh here it is!" Dipper found a skin-bound book with the words Mahagrangudon scrawled on the spine-like spine. "I'm really surprised that these books are in the Bay Area, how convenient is that?"

"Yeah, it's like someone blessed us with the gift of sheer convenience, just making our adventure all the easier."

"I wouldn't say blessing," Dipper said as he gawked at the riveting realms, "look at these places. A river of trees, a forest of sand, a desert of bricks, a city of eyes, a reasonably priced Apple store, my god!"

Mabel seemed satisfied, "From what I've gathered, these places are nodes from the dimension of weirdness. The same is true for these perplexing plants and mystifying monsters. With all of these books together, we can successfully locate these places and seal them away!"

"Alright, there's two problems with that. One, what do we seal them away with? Two, how are we going to get there? Three, how did you get here? Four, where do we know to go first?"

"That's a good question. I kind of was in a trance when I got here, I mean I always am. Thanks to global surveillance, I was able to locate your house, very convenient, that global government. As for what we can use to seal up the portals, I'm a sadhvi, remember? We're all trained in exorcism. You're also a folklore person, plus you have an axe, so that may come in handy. Plus, you're my brother."

"Well that's all well and good, Mabel. But how are we going to get from place to place?"

"Easy!" Mabel reached in her bag and pulled out some strange strand of marijuana, except it caused teleportation. "We sadhvis have the best strands of marijuana in all of the United Countries of The World. All we need to do is meditate on a spot in the world where these portals have been showing up. Say, how does the Arctic Circle sound?"

"Sounds decent enough to me. I could use some fresh air."

Mabel handed him the blunt.

"Hey Dipper," she said in a sly voice, "Wanna smoke some weed?"


	5. Ice - Fightland

Dipper awoke from his nightmare. The last thing that happened in it was that he was smoking weed with his sister and it all was hazy from there. He didn't need to worry though, the sun was shining, class was cancelled and his wife was back from her trip.

"Good morning, honey!" Dipper said with reassurance. "You won't believe the crazy dream I had."

Cindy arose from her slumber. She almost jolted out of bed, but in a very slow and unsettling fashion. Slowly but surely, she began to reach for her adventure-weathered face and peel it off. Dipper was immobilized by shock. As Cindy peeled off her face, Dipper had brief, yet apocalyptic visions. He saw San Francisco crawling with mutants and relishing its squamous squalor. He saw Oregon, every square inch covered in writhing insects that had the faces of his friends. Cindy's face was now completely gone, replaced by that of Wendy's.

"I think I would." She said in a voice that sounded like the Trumpet of Gabriel. The floor started to disintegrate into the pure void of space, and Dipper felt his body leaving the fickle void of earth. He was floating naked through a black nothingness. Dipper perceived himself as much younger than he actually was, almost as if he was his 12-year-old self venturing through the untamed wilderness of Central Oregon. Ah, the salad days.

Dipper felt his hands slowly leave his body and split off into several thousand copies of Mabel.

"Hey Dipper," They asked in a mocking fashion, "WANNA SMOKE SOME WEED?"

Dipper could see, feel and taste colors he hadn't imagined ever existed. These colors seemed like they described a sort of elder civilization, one that Dipper had fantasized about in one of his mentally mastubatory theses, yet they were very real, almost too real.

Far too real for anyone's good.

Dipper inhaled the scent of long dead city-states as he danced in ecstatic trance through the void of nothing, this was certainly the life, whatever it was.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dipper glanced a vision of a glacier. Back to dancing. Dipper glanced a vision of his sister, in deep meditation. Back to dancing. Mabel noticed Dipper rolling on a sheet of ice in painful spasms. Back to dancing. She grabbed his hand. Back to danzinfsohwdhduffuüuoooAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

Dipper awoke on a sheet of ice in the Arctic circle, flanked by the Aurora Borealis and his sister. It was all too real.

"Mabel, what the hell was in that marijuana?"

"Oh you know, the tears of Vishnu, nothing that bad."

"Nothing that bad? Nothing that bad?!" Dipper was furious. "Mabel, I was floating naked through the nothingness of space, in Bill's name, what the heck?"

"Well look on the bright side, we're in the Arctic Circle! There are probably some anomalous thingiemabobbers here, what say you we go check them out?"

"I guess?" Dipper guessed as his sister pulled him up from the icy floor. "Sure is cold here, that's for sure."

"I'll say. India sure isn't like this, that's for sure."

"Just a question, though. I remember Cindy was once researching the Sadhus, and apparently Vishnu worshippers don't smoke marijuana, and Hindus, mainly Shiva worshippers, that do partake in the weed don't do so through blunts. What makes you different?"

"Oh, I'm part of a super duper secretive sect of sadhvis that allow women, smoke marijuana through blunts and worships Vishnu. We're pretty cool, I guess."

"Ah, that explains everything. For a minute, I was worried you were a phony, but you seem like you know your stuff. "

"Yeah, I'll say. If you look at different Hindu sects, you'll find at least one group that does something different than everyone else. It's totally not an oversight or anything, that would be ridiculous."

Dipper and Mabel continued on their path towards weirdness. Dipper clasped his axe in both hands, while Mabel held her staff in one hand and was munching on some lentils she brought with her with the other. There was a certain chemistry between them, not quite awkward and not quite adroit. Dipper was still pretty damn shocked by what happened to him, it's not everyday you float around naked as your twelve-year-old self.

"Say, Mabel," Dipper asked, clasping his axe, "How do we know where we're goin-oh wait there's a giant astral field of woe."

"I suppose we went the right way." Mabel said, ready to seal up the portal with her Vaishnava magick.

The field of woe looked remarkably similar to the Aurora Borealis, except it had a certain emanatory nature about it that was difficult to wrap your finger or exorcistic chants around. As Dipper and mabel stared at the field, it seemed, to briefly flash cosmic portents. Beings with chains for hands, amorphous blobs, nightmarish squats inhabited by dream demons and other various interdimensional gangsters, as well as unsettlingly geometric colors.

"In the name of Vishnu and his nine Avatars, I command thee to be sealed!" Mabel shouted.

In reaction, the field of astral woe seemed to turn a furious color. It vibrated and writhed at the sheer agony of itself and everything around it, flashing apocalyptic sighs at a rapid pace. It then began to recede into itself, slowly moaning a chant to some long dead god worshipped by nightmarish beings from before the time of Cipher. It was gone.

"Well, that was surprisingly easy." Dipper said with what little confidence he had left. "I guess I'll really need to see my therapist now."

"Don't speak too soon. It always does this."

Indeed, the field of astral woe wasn't quite gone yet. A disheartening sigh was heard from the various glaciers surrounding Dipper and Mabel. With a most foul cracking sound, the ice shattered and a battalion of seven-armed yetis emerged from the depths. They metered closer and closer to the duo.

"Well, I suppose my axe can come in handy now." Dipper said, glad Wendy was good for at least something.

Dipper raised his antique axe and proceeded to hew the arms off of the yetis without much resistance. They bled a greenish ichor that smelled of the concept of hate. Meanwhile, Mabel was wielding her mighty staff against some other yetis, vaulting over them, delivering whacks on their heads, and stabbing them in the Yeti groin, all while muttering praises to Vishnu. This went on for a good solid minute.

"Well that was invigorating." Dipper said with a half smile on his face, his beard almost frozen because of the sheer cold.  
"I'll say." Mabel retorted. "I'll also incant to seal them off, which is what I did."

"It almost seemed too easy, you know? Like I haven't wielded an axe since the days I spent with the lumberjacks, collecting their folklore and their firewood."

"When you're as awesome as we are, anything's easy. Well I suppose we could smoke some more weed, to seal off the other portals. You'll get used to it, I know you will. What say you, Dipper? Next stop, Scandinavia!"

"I'm game." Dipper was suspect, he never thought teaching class was that easy.

So the two engaged in weedination to enter into the realms of Southern Sweden.

Something was amiss.


End file.
